The present invention relates to automated manufacturing systems and methods for electrical wire or cable harnesses as are used to interconnect electrical subsystems in large electrical systems, such as radar systems.
In modern radar systems or electro-optical systems, many of the subsystems are modular in design for ease of testing, maintenance, and replacement. These modular subsystems must be electrically interconnected and cable harness assemblies are typically used for this purpose. A radar system manufacturer may have many several radar systems and a variety of other electrical systems in current manufacture. A wide variety of electrical wire or cable harness assemblies are required to be manufactured. These cable harnesses will have a wide variety of wire sizes, lengths, electrical terminations, and wire routing paths.
It has been the practice in the industry to utilize a wire formboard to permit manual routing of the wires in laying out the cable harness in the desired assembly path. This manual routing is time consuming and requires numerous checks of the accuracy of wire selection and routing.
It is desired to provide an automated wire preparation system and cable harness assembly system to permit accurate, low-cost manufacture of these cable harnesses.